Man dies at hospital after being found unresponsive in Fountain Correctional Facility

Evan Mealins, Montgomery Advertiser
·1 min read
Fountain Correctional Facility is a medium security prison in Atmore, Alabama.

A man died in a Mobile hospital Friday night, two days after he was found unresponsive in an Alabama prison, corrections officials confirmed Tuesday.

Matthew Bright was found unresponsive in the day room at Fountain Correctional Facility in Atmore on July 13, according to Kelly Betts, spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections. He was taken by air ambulance to University of South Alabama Hospital in Mobile. Hospital staff pronounced Bright dead on July 15, Betts said.

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Bright, 33, was from Dothan, Alabama.

No further information is available at this time, and Bright’s cause of death is pending a full autopsy, Betts said. The ADOC Law Enforcement Services Division is investigating his death.

ADOC typically does not release to the press the names of inmates who die in its prisons unless a reporter makes a specific inquiry. The Advertiser relies on tips from incarcerated people or those with close ties to the prisons to report on violence in Alabama’s corrections system.

The treatment of Alabama’s prisoners remains the subject of an ongoing lawsuit by the United States Department of Justice. The DOJ’s complaint, filed in 2020, says cruel and inhumane conditions inside the Alabama correctional facilities violate the U.S. Constitution.

“Alabama fails to provide adequate protection from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, fails to provide safe and sanitary conditions, and subjects prisoners to excessive force at the hands of prison staff,” the Justice Department wrote.

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanMealins.

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This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Man dies at hospital after being found unresponsive in Fountain prison